The present invention relates to a printer, and more particularly to a printer connected to a host computer, for printing character shapes stored therein on a print medium based on print data from the host computer.
Some known printers are capable of printing not only characters of given shapes on printing sheets, but also the outlines Y for characters (hereinafter referred to as outline characters), as shown in FIG. 3B, and the outlines Y and fills X for characters (hereinafter referred to as filled outline characters) in different colors, as shown in FIG. 3C. To print a character in a desired color with such a printer, the printer prints the characters based only on a command for setting the color and a command for drawing the character, the commands being inputted from a host computer. A filled outline character is printed by the printer based on the commands according to the following sequence comprising the steps of: (a) establishing the color of the fill of a character, (b) specifying the character, (c) filing in a memory the character, (d) establishing the color of the outline of the character, (e) specifying the character the same character as specified in (b), and (f) outlining the character in a memory.
The data required to draw the filled outline character is thus prepared according to the above steps. These steps are repeated to generate one page of data to draw desired filled outline characters. Based on the generated data, the desired filled outline characters are printed on a printing sheet.
The printer, however, requires a long processing time as it carries out the above data processing for each character. Since the amount of data transmitted from the host computer to the printer is increased, the time required for the host computer to transmit the data to the printer is very long. For example, if ten filled outline characters as shown in FIG. 3C are to be printed in red for the fill X and black for the outline Y, then the colors must be established, the characters must be specified, and the characters must be filled and outlined, each for 20 times even if the characters are identical. More specifically, the colors must be changed from red to black to red . . . for 20 times, during which time the data indicative of the character ("A" in this case) are read 20 times.
Therefore, the print waiting time after the host computer starts transmitting the data until the characters are actually printed is quite long, resulting in a waste of time for the user. The efficiency with which the work is done by the printer for the user is low. Since the printer does not operate efficiently for the user, filled outline characters that can give printed documents an attractive appearance have not been fully utilized so far.